


A wing and a prayer

by Dissenter



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Angels, Define "doing the right thing", Extremism, Ideological Conflict, M/M, Matters of principle, Moral Relativism, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:59:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4129018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angels are people who choose to act in the name of what they believe to be right. Unfortunately there is some disagreement on the subject of what exactly is right. Aerial battles ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The beating of his wings

**Author's Note:**

> Because there is always room for more wingfic, and I kinda had this idea that I hadn't seen done before, and I thought it fitted here.

Matt flared his wings and felt a twinge of satisfaction at the man’s small gasp of fear. He’s never seen his wings, but he knows they are intimidating, black and red; dangerous colours. He enjoyed it more than he should have, beating the crap out of the bastard who thought he could get away with hurting his own kid, and he could almost feel the black stains at the edge of his wings spreading. Violence in the name of righteousness, bleeding into the deep crimson of sacrifice for the sake of others. He might be an angel but he has none of God’s mercy.

His wings first manifested the day he went blind. Absolutely no-one was surprised. A kid who sacrificed his eyesight to save a strangers life, of course he’d manifest wings, and of course they’d be red. Even now few people are surprised when they see them in his lawyer persona, although some expect them to be touched a little with orange after seeing how hard he fights in court. Almost no-one notices the traces of black at the tips, he works hard to suppress that part of himself in day to day life for fear that people would see red and black and realize that he was the vigilante. Actually that’s not true, he suppresses the black because it worries people, they don’t like to know about other people’s capacity for brutality. It’s always there of course, Stick taught him how to manipulate the colour percentages in his wings but if something is in your nature there will always be at least a trace visible in your wings.

The black hadn’t started to bleed into his wings until he had met Stick, learned to fight, to do more than just take the hits. Stick had noticed it before him, had told him he’d have to learn to manipulate the patterning in his wings. He’d asked how Stick even knew what colour his wings were.

“The visual representation of wings is just your brains way of interpreting information that it gets on a far more basic level, boy. The only reason you don’t know what colour my wings are is because you haven’t been paying proper attention. Concentrate, and then tell me, what colours are my wings?”

“I don’t know, I can’t see them.”

“If you think you can’t then you won’t. Stop trying to see with your eyes and just think about the question, then the answer will come to you.” Matt let his conviction that he couldn’t know drift away, and concentrated on wondering what colour Stick’s wings were.

“Grey, they’re grey. With black tips?”

“Details” Stick demanded.

“They’re lots of different shades of grey getting darker towards the edges, I can’t tell if the tips are black or just really dark grey.”

“Very good, now what about your wings.”

“They’re red, quite a dark red, like blood, and the outer pinions are starting to turn black.”

“Do you know what that means?”

“I think so. Dark red stands for sacrifice, but black means brutality. It’s because I’m angry all the time isn’t it.”

“Close but not quite. Red means sacrifice, you are correct, self-sacrifice in particular, but black actually signifies the willingness to do bad things in order to prevent worse things. A man who steps in front of a bullet to save someone else, gets red wings, a man who shoots someone to stop him hurting someone else, gets black wings. It’s a powerful combination, it means you aren’t afraid to hurt people, or get hurt, in the name of what you believe is right.”

“What do your wings mean?”

“In some ways they are actually quite similar to yours. Grey stands for practicality, and black for ruthlessness, so I’ll always take the action that has the best outcome out of the available options, even if the action itself is a terrible thing to do. The greatest good to the greatest number and all that.”

Sometimes Matt wondered just how Stick knew so much about angels. It wasn’t common knowledge that’s for sure, even people who had wings often only had the most basic idea about what they meant. It was actually surprising just how badly understood the whole phenomenon was. All that most people knew was that when people took action, when they tried to do the right thing, they manifested wings, and the more committed they were to their actions, the more solid the wings would be, so that in some people they were just ethereal shadows over their shoulders, while in others they were real enough to fly with. Most people also knew that the colours had significance, and had at least a generally accurate idea about what the colours meant, white means healing, red means sacrifice etc. Stick knew a bit more, the thing about the wings only being the human mind’s visual interpretation of something a lot deeper, was definitely not something Matt had heard anywhere else. As for the techniques he’d taught Matt for manipulating the colour percentages in his wings, changing the proportion of black and red, well most people would say it was impossible.

Angels weren’t common, but they weren’t exactly rare either, although most never manifested there wings anywhere near as strongly as Matt. Current estimates put the number at around one in a hundred, although a lot of people chose to keep their wings quiet, folded neatly against their backs out of sight. Angel wings didn’t really have any physical presence unless their owner wanted them too, so when they were folded away, they were easily disguised under even the flimsiest of clothes. Wings tended to attract a lot of unwanted attention, and so a lot of people chose to keep them quiet and carry on doing their good deeds from the shadows. Matt himself tended to keep his wings folded, in day to day life, only flaring them when he needed to make a point. They weren’t a secret, but he didn’t draw attention to their presence.

At night when he was the vigilante it was different, he kept them fully visible, strikingly patterned in black and red, both a challenge to his enemies and a promise to those he protected. And it was worth all of it, every broken bone, every bloodstain he had to scrub out of his floor, because at night, as the vigilante, he could fly. A reward for obeying his conscience, and an advantage few of the bastards who went around hurting people had. Criminals tended to lack the necessary conviction to manifest even ghostly wings, and every time he could swoop down on them from above and knock them out before they even knew what was happening, left him with a gleeful sense of accomplishment that he really should be more ashamed of. He never had any doubts that being an angel was worth it. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be one of those people who just walked by on the other side when they knew something was wrong, and honestly he didn’t want to imagine.


	2. The shelter of his wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Foggy gets his own intro chapter, because Foggy is awesome. Other people may have to share.

Foggy never expected to be an angel. He’d always thought of himself as a pretty ordinary guy, certainly not the sort who’d manifest wings. Wings were a hero thing, they were for the sort of people who went around dragging other people out of burning buildings, or giving free medical treatment to poor kids, or fighting off aliens invading New York. The avengers had wings, that Red Cross doctor on the news had wings, Foggy didn’t have wings. He was just an ordinary guy, not a bad person he hoped, but angels were special, angels had conviction. To be an angel you had to go above and beyond for the sake of other people, it wasn’t something Foggy had ever seen in himself.

Then he met Matt, and Matt did have wings. Deep red with black tips, and so tangible that Foggy honestly thought he might be able to fly with them if he weren’t blind. Foggy knew the story, it’d been headline news “Nine year old earns wings and loses sight” and all Foggy can remember thinking at the time was how sad it was that the kid would never know what his own wings looked like. Before long Matt had become his best friend, and the man mattered far more to Foggy than the angel. Matt was funny, and smart, and loyal, and somehow he brought out the best in Foggy.

Apparently that was a thing. Angels tended to bring out the best in the people around them, making them more likely to become angels themselves. In other words, wings were kind of contagious. Foggy had not known that, and hadn’t really noticed as ghostly wings had started to appear over his shoulders as he made small adjustments to his routine to make Matt’s life easier. His wings hadn’t come in suddenly, just gradually faded into being, becoming clearer every time he made a goofy joke to clear up one of Matt’s bad days, every time he saw someone upset and stopped to try and cheer them up. Hanging around Matt made him ashamed to ignore people in trouble. Matt had got himself blinded trying to help someone, the least Foggy could do was try to be nice to people. He hadn’t really noticed the wings fading in until Marci had commented on them.

“Bloody hell Foggy, you’ve got wings.” He’d looked over his shoulder, and sure enough there they were. Still mostly intangible, but definitely present. Later that night he’d examined them more closely in the mirror, finding that they were a warm honey yellow all over and measured about ten feet wingtip to wingtip. According to the fountain of all knowledge, commonly referred to as Google, yellow wings, sometimes referred to as “Samaritan wings” signified kindness, and making the effort to help people in simple everyday ways, being there for people, doing what you can even if it wasn’t much. He supposed it fitted, but the whole thing was still a bit of a shock.

What was even more of a shock was the fact that Matt had known before he did. When he tried to bring it up Matt had just acted faintly surprised. Turned out he’d known they were fading in for months, and had assumed that Foggy just didn’t want to talk about it, not that he actually hadn’t noticed, for months on end. “Honestly Foggy, how do you miss something like that?” And ok in hindsight he probably should have noticed sooner, but they really had faded in very slowly, and he’d been under a lot of pressure with coursework, and he just hadn’t spent much time in front of a mirror lately. It wasn’t like he got up every morning, and peered over his shoulder to check for wings. Well ok he did _now_ but hey wings were cool, it wasn’t like anyone could blame him for taking a few minutes each day to appreciate them and you know, check that they were really there and not some kind of really vivid dream. Anyway the point was that Foggy felt his failure to notice his own wings fading in was fairly explicable, if a little embarrassing. What was less explicable was his blind roommate noticing, without anyone telling him. Foggy was less than tactful in seeking an explanation.

“Seriously dude you’re _blind,_ how did you know before I did?”

“To be fair I’m still a bit staggered that you were actually that oblivious. I just assumed you didn’t want to talk about it or something, and then like three months in you come charging into the room all like “Dude I’ve got wings!” and I’m like Foggy, they’ve been there for three months and you’re _just noticing?_ ”

“Yes, yes, we all know I’m hopelessly oblivious, Marci has already laughed her arse off at me. The point is how did you notice?”

“Well it’s all kind of metaphysical you understand.” Matt ventured cautiously.

“I passed philosophy, I can handle metaphysical, carry on.” Foggy gave an irritable wave.

“Well basically, you don’t actually see wings, that’s just your puny mortal brain’s way of interpreting deep cosmic wavelength information into a form that you can comprehend. Being blind doesn’t actually affect my perception of wings because people don’t actually perceive wings with their eyes they do it with… other stuff”

“Other stuff?”

“There’s some debate. Basically the church says it’s the soul, the new age hippies say it’s the chakras, and the scientists argue a lot about extra dimensional perception, and as yet undiscovered energy projection sense nodules which basically mean they don’t have a clue. I dunno I just know I don’t need to be able to see to be aware of someone’s wings.”

“Can all blind people do this? I feel like this is something that should have been on Wikipedia.”

“Well sort of.” Matt just looked uncomfortable.

“What do you mean sort of? I just gave you a long hard stare of suspicion by the way.”

“Basically it’s a case of your mind makes it real. Most blind people assume they can’t see wings anymore after they’re blinded, so they don’t. It’s only if you let go of that assumption and just focus on paying attention that you realize you actually do know what people’s wings look like. People who are blind from birth never have that problem, they’ve never had the chance to conflate the two things so losing one doesn’t give them a mental block on the other.”

“Is this like that shit I read on the internet about atheists not being able to see wings?” Matt looked even more uncomfortable.

“That’s actually really rare.” Foggy did a double take

“Whoa wait a minute, you mean that actually happens? That’s a thing? Because I thought that was just a load of fundamentalist nonsense.”

“Well most of it is, I mean, most atheists believe in wings just like everyone else, they just reckon there’s a scientific explanation, they don’t have any trouble seeing wings. But yeah, if people really truly believe that angel wings don’t exist then they can’t see them. Like I said though, that’s really rare, I mean people grow up seeing angels, knowing that wings are real, the vast majority of the world’s population also sees them, it takes a very… unusual sort of person to refuse to believe in them anyway.”

“Ok so if I stop believing in God I’m not going to suddenly lose my angel spidey sense whatever it is that people use to see wings.”

“Nope, unless you suddenly lose your grip on rality and start denying angels exist, you’re stuck seeing them just like all the rest of us.” Matt grinned. “Now I think we’re overdue a night on the town to celebrate your new angelness.”

“Is that even a word?” Foggy questioned.

“Screw you Mr Avocados at Law”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what. I think i'm going to add romance to this later. Those two are too adorable together. But that's later, for now they're just two friends on a boat trip down a river in Egypt.


	3. The shadow of her wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely happy with this but it gets the point across.

Karen’s wings had started coming in the day after she decided to blow the whistle on Union Allied’s dodgy dealings. It wasn’t something she’d expected, but it wasn’t entirely surprising. She’d been happy, proud. They were beautiful, a ghostly electric blue presence over her shoulders, that matched the colour of her eyes, clearly visible if not entirely solid, a sign of conviction.

After everything went to hell they faded back, until they were barely visible even in the right light. She sat alone in a prison cell, fighting off memories of blood, and fear came so close to silencing her. The futility of it all stealing her voice, and with it her wings. The failure preyed on her mind, even after Foggy and Matt rescued her from prison.

The devil of hell’s Kitchen saved her life, fighting off the man sent to kill her. Then he saved her wings, convinced her to speak out despite her fear, to go public, to tell everyone. The next morning, looking in the mirror, they were more solid than they had ever been, intent backed up by action. He gave her back her wings and she swore to herself that she would never let herself come that close to losing them again, that she would never come so close to compromising her principles out of fear. She would speak out, speak the truth whatever the cost. So she had kept pushing, kept trying to expose the truth of the sordid dealings at union allied.

Meeting Ben had been inspirational. His wings were as blue as hers, although a shade darker. Pure truth-seeker, as honest and real as the man who wore them. It had been inspirational, and it had been educational, without his advice she’d probably have gotten herself killed with a week. He had told her to hide her wings, keep them folded tight under her clothes and not show them to anyone she didn’t trust absolutely. He told her that you had to be smart about uncovering the truth otherwise you’d never get close. She’d taken his advice, kept them folded away. Hidden from everyone except Matt and Foggy. She was proud of her wings, but she didn’t need to show them off to the world to do them justice. The best way to do that was to keep following her conscience.

Matt and Foggy had wings too. It was part of why she felt so safe around them. They didn’t hide them but they tended to keep them folded out of the way unless they were trying to make a point, since both of them had wings solid enough to get in the way if they weren’t folded up. Honestly Matt’s wings looked real enough to fly, and Foggy’s weren’t far off. They looked good together, Matt’s crimson red, with Foggy’s golden yellow. Kindness and self-sacrifice. Good people. She knew she could trust them.

Her wings hadn’t faded when she signed the non-disclosure form. She supposed it was a matter of intent, and she had no intention of hiding their dirty little secrets for them. They didn’t fade then but as time went by and her self-appointed mission began to seem more and more impossible her wings did start to fade again, just a little. It wasn’t just her, Even Ben’s were looking a little faint around the edges. Especially after Fisk pre-empted the big reveal.

Fisk, now there was a man with a disturbing set of wings. Oil slick black, with un unhealthy rainbow sheen, ruthlessness and instability in one neat and driven package. She hadn’t realized it was possible for the bad guy to be an angel, even such an unsettling one as that. She’d overheard Foggy asking Matt about it. Apparently Matt knew more than most people about angels, maybe it was a catholic thing. Matt had told Foggy that wings were a sign of personal conviction, not moral justification.

“Basically”, he’d said “Most criminals are just in it for the money, and their own personal profit, they don’t have any real convictions so they don’t have wings. But some of the most dangerous people in the world do what they do because they honestly believe they are doing the right thing. And if someone absolutely believes that they’re doing the right thing, well then they get wings, regardless of what their beliefs might actually be. Most terrorists have wings, a fair number of genocidal dictators, and fascists do as well, wings alone don’t make you a good person, they just mean you’re not apathetic.”

She’d kept that knowledge in mind, as she moved forward. That people with wings could be dangerous as well as safe, that the same conviction that drove people like Matt and Foggy could also drive someone like Fisk.

Everything took a turn for the worse after Fisk revealed himself. Mrs Cardenas died, her bright orange a yellow wings fading into the aether with the kindness and fighting spirit that had defined her. Nothing left but a hollow shell. Then Matt had his “car accident”, (did he and Foggy really think she was buying that story?), and Foggy and Matt were fighting in a way she’d never imagined them fighting. The bitterness and resentment in the air were nearly sharp enough to taste, but they refused to explain, even as Foggy walked out the door. She couldn’t deal with it so she dragged Ben out on an ill-advised mission to visit Fisk’s mother, and somehow managed to make things even worse than they already were.

The next thing Karen knew she was alone and scared sitting in an abandoned warehouse with a man who wanted her voice and threatened her friends, a gun on the table between them. But she was done being afraid, and she was done being silenced, so she picked up the gun and pointed it at him. Some people said that truth-seeker angels could tell when people were lying, maybe it was that, maybe it was just good old fashioned high stakes roulette. Either way when he said the gun wasn’t loaded, she pulled the trigger anyway. With him alive no-one she cared about would be safe, there would always be more secrets and lies. Her hands shook as she threw the gun in the river, she was a murderer now. She refused to look at her wings. She knew what she’d see there.

She was a murderer and she had to make it worthwhile so she convinced Ben to tell everyone. To drag all the blood-stained secrets into the light where they could finally be washed clean. She was a murderer, but it wasn’t enough. Ben died, and she couldn’t save him, and it was all her fault. That night she dried her eyes and swore not to cry any more. Ben had taught her that in order to do justice to her wings, the first person she had to be honest with was herself, so she stood in front of a mirror, and stared long and hard at the black stains that now marked the edges of her flight feathers. Uncovering the truth, whatever the cost, that’s what her wings said now, and while the things she had done still painted her nightmares red she was not ashamed of what she was.

It was only now, with her own wings turned dark at the edges that she really looked at Matt and Foggy’s wings, and realised they were not single coloured. When she looked at the very tips of Matt’s wings she could see that they were as black as her own. Turned out Matt had the same basic colour scheme as Daredevil, even if the percentages were very different, she wondered what choice Matt had to make, that had brought that colour into his wings. As for Foggy, she was reasonably sure that the grey bars of practicality that ghosted over the undersides of his wings were a sign of the way he took whatever action would most easily get the result he wanted, whether it be bribing Brett’s mother with cigars, or convincing Marci to turn on her own bosses, to bring down Fisk. Their wings weren’t clean either, and that was more of a comfort than anything else could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Doris might get the next chapter. I reckon she deserves some time in the spotlight.


	4. Let the truth fly free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doris's chapter. I had some trouble getting a handle on her character since she doesn't actually have many canon appearances but I think I did ok

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After writing this I've decided Doris is one of my favourite supporting characters, and she deserved more canon appearances.

The first thing Doris had noticed about Ben, way back in the day when he’d been a rookie reporter and she’d been a scared informant, were his wings. She’d never seen anyone with such solid blue wings, and their declaration of his honest intent had given her the courage to speak out. That’s when she’d earned her wings, sky blue to match Ben’s and through all the years of their marriage that had never changed although Ben’s wings were always more solid than hers. After all he sought out the truth on a daily basis, while she just tried to be honest, but while his were always more solid their shade was always a perfect match.

Ben’s wings had always been solid, he’d always been driven, a man of conviction and she’d loved him for it. Even after she’d got sick, and the world got harder, and real journalism had been replaced by fluff pieces, his conviction had remained. His wings had never faltered. That’s why she’d been so concerned over the last few days, because as he talked about running away to Paris his wings were almost translucent, and she was afraid that this case, with that young woman Page, and a network of corruption that was almost dizzying to think about, had finally got the better of him. Her husband had faced down mobsters, and dirty, cops, and corrupt politicians, and businessmen, and never flinched. But the two of them had gotten old, and her sickness almost weighed more on him than it did on her, they’d gotten old and the world had changed, and she could see him losing faith. He didn’t think he could keep up, with the new world, the new technology, the new ways of communicating. He was wrong though, she’d never seen a challenge Ben couldn’t overcome, once he’d gotten it in his head to fight it. He might be an old dog but he wasn’t past learning new tricks, if given a big enough kick up the backside, and that had always been her specialty.

So she’d told him to keep fighting, reminded him of who he was, why she fell in love with him. She would not let him betray himself. She was dying, even if Ben didn’t want to admit it to himself, and if her support was the last gift she could leave him with, then she would stand by him to the last moment. After all Ben would need something to hold onto once she was gone. So she reminded him of all the things they both knew were true, of love, and dedication, of how much she believed in him. It was the first and only time her wings were ever stronger than his, and it nearly broke her heart. She knew what she was asking, the lengths powerful men would go to, in order to protect their secrets. It was how they’d met after all, and after so many years married to him she knew the score. One day one of those powerful men he hounded, and exposed, would come for him, and wings and clever words wouldn’t save him.

Part of her wanted to ask him to back off, he’d had a good long run it was best to quit while he was ahead. She wanted to keep him safe, give him a peaceful life away from the danger, and corruption, and despair of it all. If she asked him now, if she asked for him to back down he would. He would and that’s why she will not ask. Because that would be a lie as lethally poisonous as any he’d dragged into the light of day. Because she could see his wings fading, and she didn’t want to imagine them gone. Because telling the truth is never simple or easy but it is the right thing to do. She believes that as strongly as Ben ever did, and maybe it was selfish but she couldn’t just let him walk away from it. It would break him, and if he did it for her sake it would break her. The world needs Ben Urich to tell the truth any way he can, and if the last gift she could give, to the world and to him was to make sure he told it, then by God she would make sure he did.

She thought back on that conversation after, standing over his open grave in the rain, and she wondered if she would have spoken differently if she’d known how it would end. She doesn’t think she would have. She’d known from the day she married him that this moment was coming. It was who he was, he found the truth, and he dragged it out into the light, and she’d loved him for it, even knowing that one day it would get him killed. She could have stopped him, but if she had she would have destroyed him more completely than Fisk ever could. He’d died doing what he believed him, and she was sure that his wings were as solid in the moments before his death, as they had been the day they met, all those years ago. She spread her wings as the other people started to leave, fifteen feet, wingtip to wingtip and as blue as the truth of heaven. It had been a long time since she’d impressed anyone, but she did then, in that moment. Her tribute to the power and beauty of Ben’s convictions.

The girl Karen is sweet, sweet and brave. She reminds Doris of Ben, and in some ways of herself, that devotion to the truth, the hard-headed determination. She can see why Ben took an interest, and if they’d ever had kids she likes to imagine they’d have been a little like Karen. When the girl unfolds her wings a little Doris can see blue that matches her eyes, edged with just a trace of black at the tips. “ _Good”_ She finds herself thinking, maybe that ruthless streak will protect her from the dangers ahead. Doris wishes she could ease the girl’s heart. She tried to tell her Ben didn’t die because of her, he died because of himself, because of who he was, and that was nothing to regret. Not ever. There was no-one in this world that could have forced Ben to do a thing he didn’t believe was right. No-one except maybe herself, and she never did, never would. Karen won’t hear it of course, not now with grief and shock still biting at her heart, but maybe later after it has all died down she will remember Doris’s words and take comfort. After all, they were the best kind of truth, a clean blue flame burning away the sweet poison of lies. The kind of truth that was hard to swallow but helped you heal in the end. Ben was killed because he was a good man, and to try and take the guilt for his death was to deny either his courage or his enemy’s darkness. That was the truth, and Doris would stick by it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes Doris and Ben have matching wings, they clearly have a lot in common, I figured their wings should reflect that.  
> The question now is, should the next chapter be from Wesley's POV or Vanessa's


	5. A few scattered feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wesley doesn't show off his wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard to write, I originally wasn't going to give Wesley wings but then I thought it would fit even better if he had them but hid them.

Wesley wore nice suits. Neat, smart, unassuming. He was competent and efficient and loyal and he never drew attention to himself if he could help it. He was a consummate professional, Fisk’s right hand man, the kind of subordinate most people could only dream of having…. And he never told anyone about the wings he kept folded so tight to his back they could almost be painted on. Wings were never unassuming, they drew attention, even wings like his.

Soft brown and dove grey, they weren’t flashy eye catching colours. He wasn’t ashamed of them, but he didn’t want the attention they would draw, so he hid them. Wilson had wings, dramatic oil slick black, huge and dark and impressive, the kind of conviction that could hypnotise people with the swirl of half seen colours, Wilson was an angel to inspire and lead. Wesley was just his loyal, competent assistant, and people always, always underestimated him. That was his gift.

He hadn’t exactly been surprised when his wings first appeared. It was not something he would have predicted but very little truly surprised Wesley, and he had always been a man of quiet conviction. Besides, he had been spending a lot of time with Wilson, and everyone knows that hanging out with angels tends to encourage the development of wings. At any rate the colours were exactly what he might have expected, soft dove grey for quiet practicality, for the efficiency that defines his public persona, with warm light brown for obedience, service, loyalty to his leader, to Fisk. The colours blend together on his wings, like a small bird, a sparrow, or a wren, patterned to help him blend into the background. They are fairly pretty in an understated way, just because he had never told people about his wings doesn’t mean he didn’t take time to admire them in the mirror. It’s not vanity, anyone with wings who says they haven’t taken time to examine them is a liar, and he is after all only human, for all he does a good impression of a machine.

Fisk knew of course. Wesley told him the very day he first noticed them. Fisk is his employer, his friend, the man he would follow into hell, Wesley has no secrets of note from him. Fisk respects his choice to hide them, for all that Fisk himself is all about the display, he can respect Wesley’s desire for privacy. Besides it’s not as if they change anything much. They may be fairly solid but they are nowhere near the same league as Fisk’s own, or those of his nemesis the vigilante in the mask. Fisk can _fly_ and if the reports are to be believed, so can the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. It’s strange, out of the millions of people in the world with enough conviction to manifest wings, only a handful have the sheer force of will for flight, and yet now there’s two of them in this one city, and that’s not even counting the avengers who seem to have set up shop not too far away, or that kid running around in spandex with garish blue and orange wings, and enough conviction to glide if not enough for true flight. Maybe they attract each other on some deep cosmic level, or maybe it’s something about New York City itself.

He doesn’t really regret hiding his wings, it would have altered his interactions with Madame Gau, and Nobu, and the Russians in ways that would have been too hard to predict and control. It could easily have unravelled all their plans and risks are not Wesley’s business. Given the information he had at the time it was the right decision. All the same he wonders, with everything unravelling around their ears, maybe if he had things wouldn’t have gone so wrong. He wonders is his conversation with Karen might have gone differently, if he’d faced her as an angel rather than just a man, if the sight of conviction to match her own might have given her pause. Maybe then she would have been more inclined to be sympathetic to his point of view, maybe she would have respected his position. But then he looks at the vivid blue wings, only now bleeding black at the edges and he knows it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing. He should have been paying more attention, truth by its very nature is uncompromising. Where kindness, or self-sacrifice, or practicality, might have found room to bend, truth cannot. And so when he had backed her into a corner it could have ended in only one of two ways, with her bleeding out on the floor, or with him in her place.

His wings will vanish with his death, and yet he feels no urge to spread them, to make them visible through his last moments. No-one else has ever seen his wings, and now no-one ever will. There’s something poetic about it, and Wesley has always had an appreciation for poetry. He did his work in the shadows, unnoticed, unnoted, people saw the results of what he did but they never saw him, and now it seems his wings will be as invisible and forgotten as he will be, too late to show anyone. He could show Karen, his angel of death, but he doesn’t want to, not to her, his killer. In hiding this one thing to the very end he denies everything she is, he denies her the truth that grants her wings and courage, and he is after all human enough to be spiteful.

Karen is truth, and truth can be cruel. He really shouldn’t have been so surprised when she shot him and walked away. Her wings were very solid as he saw her leave and he wonders if Hell’s Kitchen is about to gain a new flight capable angel. He wonders what it will mean. For all the bad press that Fisk’s black, or the Devil’s black and red, get, he thinks maybe hers are more brutal than either of them. He knows Fisk wouldn’t have walked away from him as he was dying, even if they had been strangers, he thinks maybe the man in the mask wouldn’t have either, if that man would even have shot him in the first place. Karen shot him and walked away, because truth is many things but it is rarely merciful.

So he keeps his wings folded tight against his back as they fade and is quiet and unobtrusive even in death, because he is loyalty in service and cold practicality, and if this final act of defiance is the only blow he can strike against one he knows is Fisk’s enemy, then he will strike it. He’s always been more one for quiet conviction than dramatics anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who should I write next, Fisk, or Claire? I can't decide, or maybe I should give Matt another chapter.


	6. Drawings of angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa has a thing for angels, and what Vanessa wants, Vanessa gets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to do Matt and Fisk again but Vanessa wanted her say, and I thought it would be interesting to do the POV of someone who wasn't an angel

Vanessa had always been fascinated by angels, the beautiful bright colours of their wings, the sheer force of their resolve. She lived her life surrounded by art and artists, and if there was ever a truer form of art then she had not seen it.

She’d never had wings of her own. Not even the ghost of a shadow over her shoulders, and she’d never much regretted it. She admired people with the kind of belief and dedication to manifest wings, but she’d never really wanted to be one of them. It wasn’t who she was, that kind of conviction. Angels were all fanatics in one way or another, and Vanessa was far too conscious of her own desires. She _wanted_ and she arranged her life so that she got what she wanted. Desire rather than principle. It didn’t make her a bad person she didn’t think. Just… a little self centred.

Vanessa had always been fascinated by angels, so when Wilson had appeared in her gallery with a pair of wings like no other’s she’d ever seen she made an effort to talk to him. When he’d asked her out she’d said yes, because he was sweet, and awkward, and honest, and his wings were so real she could feel the airflow shift when he moved them. She wondered if he’d feel it if she touched them. They were beautiful, and she wanted so badly to touch.

He took her to dinner and he’d been just as sweet and genuine as she’d hoped. He’d also started to tell her about his dreams, his plans, the convictions that cast hypnotic, oil slick shadows over his shoulders. She couldn’t bring herself to look away. Then they were rudely interrupted, and night went to hell. Wilson dropped her home, and left her with a great deal to think about.

When quiet loyal Wesley who pretended he wasn’t an angel, called her back, told her that Wilson needed her, that he didn’t know what else to do, she had already made her decision. She pictured Wilson in her mind’s eye with his secrets, and his brilliance, and his hypnotic rainbow black wings and she _wanted._ She gently ran her fingers through his feathers as he told her about his father, and it seemed to calm him. The feathers were softer than she’d expected, silk smooth on the outer edges, but fluffy and warm where they met the shoulders. The stronger the conviction the more extensive the detail, and Vanessa thought she could spend a lifetime cataloguing the details on Wilson’s wings. They were breathtaking, she wanted the world to see them.

When Wilson went public Vanessa was by his side and all nineteen feet of his wings were spread for the world to see, black as ink, with flashes of colour where the light caught them, red, green, blue, pink, purple. Madness and ruthlessness people whisper, and look troubled, but also conviction and vision. He worries people but they follow him anyway, because he knows where he’s going and he believes in it, and that generates a kind of charisma it’s hard for the flightless to disregard. He’s beautiful, her Wilson, beautiful and unique, a work of art she keeps for her own private collection.

The day Vanessa woke up after being poisoned was the only time she ever saw Wilson’s wings falter. She’d nearly died, and it had shaken him, his faith, his determination so deeply that his wings were almost translucent. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hand it showed just how much she meant to him, and having that kind of hold over a man of such will was intoxicating. On the other seeing that will brought low, seeing Wilson’s conviction waver, was not something Vanessa ever wanted to happen. She did what she could to reassure him, to strengthen his resolve, and when he told her to leave with an unhappy twitch of the flight feathers that said that wasn’t what he wanted at all, she refused. She belonged by his side with a front row seat to view the destruction he rained down upon their enemies, she _wanted_ that front row seat, and Vanessa had positioned her entire life to make sure she always got what she wanted. She would not leave him.

It helped, she thought. Certainly his wings regained their usual solidity, despite poor Wesley’s disappearance. It was a shame, she’d liked Wesley, she’d liked the shade of the soft brown feather she’d seen poking out from under his jacket once. She’d liked how he’d kept his wings quiet but never let them fade. He was a different sort of art to Wilson, a small but elegant sketch as opposed to the bright, dramatic centrepiece that Fisk was. Not worldchanging, or showstopping, but intriguing in its own way. It was a damn shame to see that go up in flames. But Wilson was still strong, still fighting, even when it all fell apart, and he was arrested. He made a last break for freedom, killed his guards and _flew_. Flight was… well, it was the most incredible thing she’d ever seen him do. She could see him in the distance, and she could barely breathe, with hope, and fear, and shock at the grace of him. It was almost legendary, so few people ever gained the kind of conviction needed to glide, let alone for true flight. Wilson flew, and it was incredible, and it should have been enough, should have gotten them away clean.

It would have been enough, if it hadn’t been for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. They really should have seen that coming, the vigilante was known to have wings, pretty solid ones, and more than one frightened criminal had reported being attacked from above. People had assumed he was gliding, had just enough strength of will to loosen gravity’s hold on him, it wasn’t common, but it didn’t have the near mythical status of true flight. They should have seen it coming, the man was clearly a fanatic of the highest order, he was too obsessive not to be. Obsessive angels were dangerous, they should have known better than to underestimate him. Still, nobody had suspected he was capable of true flight.

Vanessa was too far away to see the details of the fight, all she saw was two dark winged figures attacking, then retreating, then attacking again, before one locked with the other and forced him to the ground. That was the last she saw of Wilson. She didn’t look back as the helicopter flew her away, but she swore that one day she would get him back. Whatever it might take, because what Vanessa wanted, Vanessa found a way to get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Vanessa doesn't have wings, and won't have wings. It just didn't feel right to me.


	7. The nightingale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire is just a little too ruthless to fit in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Claire's chapter.

Claire doesn’t, quite, match. The hospital is full of angels, full of decent, well-meaning people with wings as pure white as the driven snow. Healers wings. Not all of them of course, there’s a few that stick out, there’s a paramedic who usually keeps his wings folded away, but everyone knows the healing white is stained with blood red, there’s that diagnostician who takes perverse pleasure in shocking people with his pitch black and dark blue, there’s a psychologist with wings the clearest blue she’s ever seen. A lot of people in the hospital don’t have wings at all, the concentration may be higher than the general population but wings still don’t come close to constituting a majority.

Still though, most people in the hospital who do have wings, have white healer wings to match their profession. Claire has healer wings, has white feathers that show her determination to _fix_ people, but her wings have more than one colour, have done from the start, and it stands out. Black shading through grey to snow white flight feathers. Graduating shades, like a sky blanketed in clouds. She wants to fix people but she has a streak of ruthless practicality in her that can’t help but shine through. She’s not _nice_ and her wings declare that to the world. 

She’s not _nice_ but she does have healer wings, and that’s how Santino knows to call for her when he finds a man bleeding in a dumpster. Santino is a good Catholic boy, and he knows it’s better to call a healing angel than the authorities in this neighbourhood. She fixes him, the man in the mask, but she feels absolutely no reason to be nice about it. God knows the man needs someone to give him a hard time about his inability to take decent care of himself.

Claire doesn’t, quite match, but people always look first to the white in her wings, politely ignore the black and the grey, pretend it’s not there. Sometimes it’s convenient, black and grey make people uncomfortable, and white wings always symbolise safety, but still. It’s irritating, how people choose to see only part of her, see the healer, the nurse, but not the practicality and ruthlessness at her core. When people call on her they always call on the white in her wings, never the grey, certainly never the black.

Then she meets the man in the mask. Mike she calls him, and he doesn’t just call on the white. She first meets him bloody and bleeding, and of course that calls out the healer in her, but from the minute he regains consciousness he demands more from her. Tells her the facts, tells her to do what needs to be done _no hospitals they’ll kill everyone,_ he recognises the hard edges that most healers don’t have, more than that he’s choosing to depend on them. And then suddenly they’re on the roof, torturing a man for the sake of a kidnapped child, the black in her wings spreads like ink and it feels so good to have someone acknowledge that part of her. It’s not pretty, or pleasant, but it’s part of her and she refuses to apologise for it.

When they come for her, her wings are more solid than they’ve ever been. She fights with them, lashes out with the illusion of fourteen feet of bone and muscle and feathers. She’s pretty sure she gave one of those bastards a concussion, but they’ve fought angels before and in the end they take her anyway.

She sees the devil’s wings in the dark. Red and black, her deadly guardian angel. She sees without seeing, and she understands what Matt was trying to tell her about wings only being the mind’s way of interpreting something soul deep and incomprehensible. Matt, his name is, and his wings won’t be turning blue anytime soon but everyone needs a little honesty in their lives and she thinks it’s good he told her.

She likes Matt, the devil, the man in the mask. She likes his conviction, his ideals, the way he looks at her and sees all of her. Even without vision he sees more of who she is than anyone else allows themselves to. The way he sees the darkness and hard edges in her and doesn’t shy away because his are too much the same. She likes it altogether too much, and she can see without seeing the dark and dangerous path they could lead each other down, darkness feeding on darkness, and so she steps away, backs away. Matt doesn’t need any more of his life to be lived in the shadows, Claire doesn’t need to see someone she loves destroy themselves. So she backs off, becomes healer but not lover and she knows it’s the right choice.

When Foggy calls on her it is as healer and not lover, and really Matt should have died. She comes, she heals in and then she does the hard and necessary thing and leaves. Leaves him with Foggy with the sunshine yellow wings, and the simple kindness that she knows Matt needs. Leaves him alone with Foggy’s hurt and anger, because she can see that if this wound isn’t purged of poison now it will fester and destroy them both, and if she is there it will only hinder the process.

Fisk falls, and Matt heals, and the world keeps turning, but some things have changed. Matt still calls on her for healing, and so do half the other vigilante’s in the New York area, and it feels so good to be able to combine her ruthless practicality, her whatever is necessary attitude, with her desire to help and heal. To deal with people who appreciate the grey and black in her wings which keep her from calling the cops or the ambulance, as much as they do the white that drives her to put them back together. She doesn’t match at the hospital, but in the shadows of the city she blends right in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking next chapter i'm going to do a more up close look at that fight between Matt and Fisk


	8. Blood and feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy and Matt fight

Foggy blinked and failed to banish the nightmare flashes of red and black from his mind. Black, and red, red and black, feathers, mask, blood. The red of Matt’s blood soaking through the black of the fucking vigilante costume. Why hadn’t he seen it, why could he still not see it? Black and red, the colour of the vigilante’s wings, red and black the colour of Matt’s wings, and Foggy hadn’t even known it was possible to manipulate the patterns of your wings like that. Just chalk it up to yet another thing Matt had no right to keep from him, but lied about anyway. Wings don’t lie though, he should have seen this. Brutality and self-sacrifice, and God it was so bloody obvious. Bruises and bad excuses and improbable coincidences, and he just hadn’t looked close enough.

He’d half expected his own wings to fade after leaving Matt like that, but no. That wasn’t a fair judgement. He’d kept to his convictions even through the hurt and betrayal. He’d done his best to help, no matter how much it hurt him. He’d stayed, he’d called the nurse and kept Matt alive, and stayed with him until morning. Had confronted him, open and honest. And ok maybe he hadn’t been nice about it but kind doesn’t always mean the same thing as nice, and the grey of cold practicality is as much a part of him as the warm yellow his wings were born to. Kind isn’t always nice, and more than anything Matt had needed a reality check. Had needed the hard cold truth that he refused to see for himself. So Foggy had been ruthless and practical, and hard, because that was kinder in the long run than allowing Matt to continue tearing himself apart without a word.

And he was more than Matt fucking Murdock’s friend, even if sometimes it was hard to remind himself of that with how much support and care Matt needed just to keep functioning. Foggy was an Angel, a man of conviction in his own right, and there were other people who deserved help besides Matt bloody Murdock. Foggy had walked away from Nelson and Murdock, from Matt and everything they’d built together, and there had been no shift in his wings. Not in the colour or the strength, or the sheer realness of them, not as long as he stood by his own convictions. Not as long as he still gave everything he had doing whatever he could for the sake of Elena, Karen, Ben, all the other unimportant, insignificant, little people that Fisk hurt without a thought.

He kept his wings out when he spoke to Marcie. It was manipulative, but Foggy was a lawyer, it was practically in the job description. People listened to angels, respected them and if keeping his wings in plain sight would influence Marcie, make her more likely to help then he’d keep them right where she could see. She wasn’t stupid, she knew exactly what he was doing, but that didn’t change the fact that when an angel tells you that you can be better, it’s hard to shake the urge to prove them right, to live up to their faith. Wings are contagious because angels bring out the convictions that most people bury under layers of apathy and self-preservation, a mixture of shame and inspiration that forces people to _care_. Marcie has no wings, she’s not even close to having wings. She’s as cynical ad they come, but still when Foggy angled his wings towards her and asked her to do what’s right she didn’t say no, couldn’t bring herself to look away.

Missing Ben’s funeral had felt… bad, but he’d had a good reason and he suspects Ben of all people would understand. He had after all been an angel too. He would have understood why Foggy sacrificed good manners for results. Foggy had felt slightly guilty, but you didn’t have to attend a funeral to mourn the dead, and Foggy knew he’d made the right decision. Still Karen told him what happened after and he did regret not seeing Doris’s wings. They must have been a sight to behold.

In the end he forgave Matt, not out of kindness, or practicality, and certainly not because of Matt’s ruthlessness or self-sacrifice. He forgave Matt in the end for reasons that had nothing to do with principle and everything to do with love. Because Matt was his best friend and Foggy was not ready to walk away from everything they were to each other.

He found Matt at his gym, fighting in a way that no blind man should be able to, in a way that no-one of lesser conviction ever could. Fist strike, high kick, blow from the wing, and it was a thing to behold, seeing pure conviction so strong it could break bones when it hit. And yet for all that strength of heart and soul, Foggy had cut Matt to the bone with his anger. They had cut each other to the bone, but Foggy reached out anyway, Matt responded anyway. Wings touching because they weren’t quite ready for a hug. Maybe they both had things to apologise for, and maybe it would take time for all of this to heal, but in that moment they touched wingtip to wingtip, heart to heart and they knew it would be ok.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit short but the next chapter should be soon


	9. Fly by night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fisk tries to fly away. Matt goes after him.

The thing with flying is, it’s about more than conviction. Wings are about conviction and principle, that’s the root of their strength, their tangibility, but flight, flight is more than that. It’s about trust, trust that your wings, will hold, that your beliefs won’t waver. Flight is always a leap of faith. Matt is good at those, or maybe just careless of the consequences, and there is nothing quite like the whisper of air under and through his primaries when he takes flight. He loves it, he loves flying even more than he loves fighting. That freedom that he can never have on the ground, and tonight, tonight he feels as though he could fly forever.

“Go and be an Angel.” Foggy had said with sun yellow wings spread out behind him and something Matt couldn’t quite read in his tone. And so Matt had gone to fight the mad twisted, fallen angel that Fisk was with Foggy’s blessing echoing in his ears, and he’d never felt so sure of himself.

He hunted down Fisk like a falcon hunts a pigeon, death on the wing. Fisk never stood a chance, not with his conviction ragged and fraying around the edges, from grief, and anger, and the unravelling of everything he worked for. He was still dangerous, still mad and utterly convinced of his own rightness, but his wings were not what they were, and Matt’s were stronger than they’ve ever been.

Besides, flying is a leap of faith as much as anything else, and Fisk has never been one to take the risk. His wings always were strong enough to fly, but unlike Matt, he’d never actually tried before. He’d never practiced the way Matt had and the gap in experience showed. Matt caught him long before he could reach the helicopter, and more reliable, mechanical means of flying.

Matt struck from above, wings folded tight in a falcons dive, and the force of the collision was enough to knock Fisk’s breath from his lungs. Then they disentangled themselves from each other and the air was a blur of punches, and kicks, and lightning fast blows of the wings whenever either of them was willing to lose a little height. They were all over blood and bruises with loose feathers flying everywhere, in red and black, and the sick rainbow sheen of an oil slick. They were both fighting with everything they had, but for once Matt had the advantage. Fisk was strong, but he wasn’t a trained fighter, and he relied a great deal on his weight when it came down to blows. Fighting in the air it was almost impossible to bring his greater mass to bear, and Matt’s acrobatics and training, the hours of practice Stick had put him through, the nights of experience he’d gained against the worst of Hel’s Kitchen,  truly came into their own.

It was the best kind of high, he was fighting Fisk, and _winning._ He had the advantage over the mountain, monster of a man, that had nearly crushed him, that had left him broken, and bleeding and half dead. He had the advantage, and Foggy was waiting for him at home, with wings like sunshine, and a smile in his voice, with that knowledge sitting under his heart, there was no way Matt could lose.

By the time the police arrived Matt had forced Fisk to the ground. Brett was first on the scene with his voice steady, his gun drawn, and his translucent purple and blue wings in full view. Law and truth, and it was thanks to those wings that Matt had always known Brett was an honest cop, that was why he’d sent Hoffman to him, and that was why he stepped back now and left Fisk in his hands. Brett would see the man to trial, Matt had somewhere else to be.

Matt came back in through the window. Foggy tried to act like he hadn’t been waiting up.

“So how’d it go?” He asked, mock casual.

“I got him.” Matt still hadn’t folded his wings away, and almost subconsciously Foggy started to unfurl his in response. They were both quiet for a moment. Surprisingly enough it was Matt who broke the silence.

“Foggy I…” He trailed off in half desperate uncertainty.

“Yes Matt? You do realise I lack psychic powers. You will need to use your words.” Matt gave him a look that would probably have been a hundred times more effective if Matt hadn’t aimed it at the wall just above Foggy’s head. Foggy just raised an eyebrow.

“When I was out there, fighting Fisk I just couldn’t stop thinking…. You know you’re important to me right Foggy?” Foggy sighed.

“I know. You’re important to me too Matt. That’s why it hurts so much when you lie, when you hide things from me.”

“I’m not lying now. I… while I was fighting Fisk, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, I… wanted to tell you the truth.” He stood up a little straighter, a little more determined and let the uncertainty vanish from his voice. “I love you. I guess I have for a long time, but I was too afraid to admit it to myself, and certainly too afraid to admit it to you. But I was fighting Fisk and all I could think of was the sound of your voice and the colour of your wings, and I’m so tired of lying.” Matt was clearly afraid but, Foggy didn’t hesitate, just stepped up to Matt and folded him up tight in his wings. He could feel Matt’s own wings shift, fold back over his until they were both encased in blankets of living feathers.

“Thank you” Foggy whispered, and his voice shook with and odd combination of relief and joy, “Thank you for telling me the truth.” And then he pulled Matt into a deep searing kiss, and for a while after that all either of them could feel was the warmth of skin and the silky soft texture of feathers. This, Matt thought, was what home felt like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok this is the last chapter for now. I've kind of lost steam on this one and this looks like a good place to finish it. I may or may not come back to it at some point. If I do it'll be in a sequel story. Thankyou all for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more chapters, in which hopefully there will be more plot, but first there will be some more introductory chapters. Yes most of the people Matt knows have wings, yes Fisk has wings. Just to be clear so far we have  
> Matt- red and black wings (self sacrifice and ruthlessness)  
> Stick- grey and black wings (Practicality and ruthlessness)


End file.
